Saving Seafood

Season for harvesting Eels For Sushi Will Be Over Soon

May 30, 2017 — Maine’s annual season for harvesting baby eels from rivers and streams will likely be over in the coming days.

The baby eels, called elvers, are sold to Asian aquaculture companies and used to make sushi. They are the subject of one of the most lucrative fisheries in New England and are currently selling for about $1,300 per pound.

Fishermen are limited to quota of a little more than 9,500 pounds of the eels for the entire fishery, and they are within 400 pounds of it. State officials say fishermen have a little more than 366 pounds of quota left. Once the quota is hit, the fishery shuts down.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WABI

Maine’s latest fishing frenzy brings in $1,200 a pound – and it’s not lobster

May 26, 2017 — It is just past midnight, rain clouds stalking a full moon, and Julie Keene is out on a muddy riverbank in thigh-high rubber boots and a camouflage jacket, a headlamp strapped over her hair.

As she wrestles with an oversize fishing net, Keene tells how she went from rags to riches, and that’s not a story many fishermen tell.

Just a few years ago, the sardine factory in her hometown of Lubec had closed, and Keene was scrounging for a living digging clams and gathering periwinkles from the beach.

“We were so damn poor we were on food stamps,” Keene said.

Then came what for Maine was the equivalent of a gold rush. It was slimy, squirmy baby eels — in such demand in Asian markets that they were suddenly more profitable than even the beloved Maine lobster.

One memorable night in 2012 when the baby eel were running strong, Keene was paid $36,000 — in cash — for her catch.

“I almost threw up. I felt like I had robbed a bank. I couldn’t grasp the concept of that much money,” Keene recalled.

The eel rush allowed Keene, the daughter of a lighthouse keeper, to buy a small farm, a tractor and a truck. She even started a retirement account.

Government regulators have since stepped in to slow the fishing frenzy, but with American glass eels fetching $1,200 a pound and up, federal and state authorities have launched a wide-ranging criminal investigation to halt what has become a multimillion-dollar international smuggling industry that is threatening the survival of the much-maligned species.

Eleven people have pleaded guilty in Maine and South Carolina since last year to illegally trafficking in baby eels, and two more are awaiting trial.

“Skyrocketing prices for juvenile American eels in Asia have led to a surge in poaching and trafficking in this unique species, threatening to wipe it out in the rivers of the Northeast,” Dan Ashe, then director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said when the case was announced in October.

Europe has had serious problems. The eel population has declined by 90% across the continent over the last 30 years, and with the fish now considered critically endangered there, exports to Asia have been banned.

In the United States, the American eel was at “very high risk” of extinction in the wild as of 2014, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

How Maine came to play a central role in an international eel smuggling scheme

May 23, 2017 — Years after officials launched an investigation into baby eel poaching on the East Coast, the first of several men to plead guilty to participating in the wildlife trafficking ring was sentenced last week in a federal courtroom in Maine.

Michael Bryant, 40, a former Baileyville resident who now lives in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, is one of more than a dozen men who the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says poached thousands of pounds of the baby eels, also known as elvers or “glass” eels, from 2011 through 2014. Since 2011, elvers on average have fetched around $1,500 per pound for fishermen, and netted more than $4 million total for the 12 convicted poachers who have pleaded guilty to federal charges in South Carolina, Virginia and Maine.

Maine found itself at the center of a criminal enterprise that illegally netted elvers along the Atlantic seaboard, where most states ban their harvesting, and then shipped the eels overseas to feed East Asia’s voracious seafood appetite, according to investigators.

Bryant and other poachers benefitted from a combination of environmental, economic and regulatory factors earlier this decade that created an unexpected boon for elver fishermen in Maine, where the vast majority of the country’s legal elver harvest occurs. Maine, one of only two states with legal elver fisheries, has approximately 1,000 licensed elver fishermen who over the past seven years have caught 81,000 pounds of elvers valued at more than $126 million. South Carolina, the other state, issues only 10 licenses each year and has much smaller harvests.

Last October, Bryant was one of seven men who pleaded guilty in federal court in Maine to trafficking in poached elvers. According court documents, Bryant did not have a fishing license but caught 207 pounds of elvers in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia over four consecutive springs, from 2011 through 2014. He sold them to unscrupulous dealers or middlemen, with roughly half his catch being funneled through Maine, for an average of $1,600 per pound, netting a total of $331,084, according to authorities.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Officials: Maine Elver Harvest at Almost 80 Percent of Annual Quota

May 8, 2017 — After a slow start, Maine fishermen are closing in on their annual harvest quota for baby glass eels more than a month before the season officially ends.

Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said the eels — known as elvers — are currently fetching around $1,300 a pound from dealers, who can’t ship the catch to Asian markets fast enough.

“We’re probably at almost 80 percent of the total quota, harvesters have landed over 7,500 pounds of the 9,616 of the overall quota and that leaves a couple of thousand pounds left to harvest,” he said.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

Elver prices rebounding

May 3, 2017 — With a month still left in the fishing season that ends May 31, the price of elvers (technically, glass eels) is on the rise, but many fishermen have already filled their annual quota and are dumping juvenile eels back into the water.

According to Ellsworth elver buyer Bill Sheldon, there are still plenty of elvers in the water, but that’s not doing the fishermen any good. Some harvesters with just 1 or 2 pounds of quota remaining have had to toss 15 to 20 pounds of elvers overboard to avoid overfishing their allocations.

“It’s a shame when you consider the economics of Hancock and Washington counties,” Sheldon said on Monday.

Maine elver harvesters are limited to a total annual landings quota of 9,616 pounds set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. According to preliminary figures released by the Department of Marine Resources, as of 6 p.m. on Sunday, dealers had reported buying just under 7,218.4 pounds from licensed harvesters, approximately 75 percent of the annual limit. With 31 days still to go in the season, only 2,397.6 pounds of quota remained available to harvest.

On Monday, Sheldon said that after falling to $1,150 per pound, the going price for elvers was $1,300 and going up.

The price “seems to have bottomed out,” Sheldon said. “My expectation is that it will increase slowly to the end of the season.”

According to DMR, the average price harvesters have received for elvers so far this season is $1,311. A few years ago, the price reached $2,600 per pound.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

NEW YORK: Millions of Tiny Baby Eels Invade the Hudson River

April 25, 2017 — There are millions of really tiny, baby American eels swimming up the Hudson River and it’s an intriguing look at how species migrate like clockwork.

Every spring American Eel are born in the Atlantic Ocean and they migrate to the Hudson River. These eel are almost transparent and that is why they are referred to as “glass eels.”  Like many migrations and species in our world, the American Eel is slowly disappearing and the NYSDEC Hudson River Estuary Program is trying to find out what is happening to the glass eel.

I was hanging out by the river in Poughkeepsie last spring and I noticed a bunch of people standing in the Fallkill Creek, which runs into the river by the Children’s Museum. They were catching little eels and putting them in a bucket to study them. It was part of the Hudson River American Eel Project.

Read the full story at WPDH

Elver landings rising slowly, but price stays low

April 18, 2017 — A little more than three weeks into the 10-week fishing season, Maine elver dealers have reported buying about 30 percent of the total annual 9,616-pound landings quota allocated to the state’s fishery.

As of 6 p.m. on Sunday, according to figures the Department of Marine Resources described as “extremely preliminary,” dealers had purchased a total of 2,828.908 pounds of elvers and reportedly paid harvesters a total of $4,057,115 — an average price of $1,434 per pound.

That price may be misleading, though. On Patriots Day morning, an elver dealer in Ellsworth was paying $1,150 per pound and advising the fishermen who sell to him to hold on to their eels for a few days in hopes the price would rise.

At this time last year, dealers in the Ellsworth area were offering harvesters $1,300 per pound, with the low price reportedly a reflection of a weak market in Asia.

For the past two seasons, Maine harvesters have landed fewer elvers than allowed under their quota: 5,259 pounds in 2015 and 9,400 pounds last year. In 2015, the average price of elvers was just under $2,172 per pound and, at times, the price has soared above $2,400 per pound.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Sushi stress: Fishermen not catching many baby eels

April 11, 2017 — The chilly rivers of Maine are causing trouble in the world of sushi.

The state’s brief, annual season for baby eels is off to a slow start because of a cold spring that has prevented the fish from running in rivers.

The baby eels, called elvers, are an important piece of the worldwide sushi supply chain. They’re sold to Asian aquaculture companies — sometimes for more than $2,000 per pound — that raise them to maturity and use them as food.

“Everything is slow,” said state Rep. Henry Bear, who represents members of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians who fish for elvers. “But we’re hopeful.”

Maine has the only significant fishery for elvers in the country, and fishermen are limited to a quota of a little less than 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms) per year.

The season started March 22, and state records say fishermen have only caught about 1,050 pounds (475 kilograms), so far. They have until June 7 to try to catch the entire allotment, which means they are well behind pace.

The average temperature for March in the Portland area this year was 28.8 degrees. The normal average is 33.5 degrees.

Fishermen said they are confident the season will pick up, as some warm weather is forecast for Monday and the rest of the week in southern Maine. Fishermen catch the elvers in rivers and streams with nets, and sell them to dealers. So far, they’re selling for $1,487 per pound at docks, state records say.

Elvers are a major fishery in Maine, and fishermen’s ability to reach quota fluctuates year to year. They reached quota in 2014, fell far short in 2015, and just about reached it last year. Early spring weather, which can be hard to predict in Maine, has emerged as a deciding factor in whether fishermen will reach quota.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Officials cracking down on poaching of a slippery, squiggly and valuable commodity — baby eels

April 10, 2017 — A massive, years-long undercover operation has led to arrests and guilty pleas up and down the East Coast of poachers and traffickers who dealt in a slippery, squiggly and valuable commodity: baby eels.

William Sheldon, who runs one of the biggest and oldest eel businesses in Maine, might be forced to give up his truck with the license plate “EELWGN.” In federal court in Virginia this month, a Brooklyn seafood dealer named Tommy Zhou became the eleventh person to plead guilty to eel trafficking as part of the sweeping federal investigation known as “Operation Broken Glass.” Zhou declined to comment.

“I’m kind of chuckling now as more and more faces show up in the paper,” said Tim Sheehan, who runs a seafood company so far north in Maine it’s nearly in Canada. “We could be the last dealer standing.”

Maine is home to the only major legal market in the United States for baby eels, known as glass eels or elvers. (There is also a small market in South Carolina.) But sky-high prices for the little wrigglers has led to widespread poaching, as elvers caught farther south are smuggled north. Tracking illegal eels is a challenge.

“Fishermen can sell eels to dealers who can then sell eel to anybody,” said Toni Kerns, director of the Interstate Fisheries Management Program, a part of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The commission is a coastal-state compact that sets eel regulations.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Brooklyn Seafood Dealer Pleads Guilty for Illegally Trafficking American Eels

April 6, 2017 — The following was released by the U.S. Justice Department:

Today, Tommy Water Zhou pled guilty in federal district court in Norfolk, Virginia, to trafficking more than $150,361 worth of juvenile American eels, aka “elvers” or “glass eels,” in violation of the Lacey Act. As part of his guilty plea, Zhou admitted to illegally selling or purchasing elvers in interstate commerce, which had been harvested illegally in Virginia.

According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, in 2010, Zhou established a seafood distribution company known as Wilson Group Sea Trading LLC. The company’s principle place of business was Brooklyn, New York, and its operations included importing seafood for domestic consumption and exporting seafood to international markets. In 2013, the defendant obtained a Maine elver dealer license, authorizing him to purchase and resell elvers harvested in Maine. Thereafter, using his Maine dealer license to cover his illegal activity, the defendant began purchasing and exporting elvers that were actually harvested from Virginia waterways in violation of Virginia law.

This plea was the result of “Operation Broken Glass,” a multi-jurisdiction U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) investigation into the illegal trafficking of American eels. To date, the investigation has resulted in guilty pleas for eleven individuals whose combined conduct resulted in the illegal trafficking of more than $2.75 million worth of elvers.

The guilty plea was announced today by Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Acting Director Jim Kurth of the USFWS.

“We will not allow illegal wildlife traffickers to undermine managed fish species like the American eel,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Wood. “In this operation, we are actively partnering with states all along the East Coast to enforce the law and protect our nation’s waterways from further exploitation.”

Read the full release here